The Psychoanalysis of the Pursuit for Power

The aim of the study was to search and analyze the phenomenon of unconscious instinctive desire for power as a separate object of scientific interest in the theory and clinic of psychoanalysis. The paper analyzed numerous psychoanalytic sources for a comprehensive study of the phenomenon of power and the personalities' desire for it. The interest of the research was aroused by the question: how, from the point of view of psychoanalysis, the unconscious desire for domination, dominance, subordination and manipulation is fixed in the personality. The tasks were set to summarize theoretical research in this area from the position of various scientific directions, to identify a possible intrapsychic basis contributing to the formation of the inclination to the desire for power in the personality, to identify a unified psychoanalytic scheme of formation of such an inclination in the personality and to analyze the intrapsychic prerequisites of the pregenital stages of psychosexual development of the individual, possibly contributing to the formation of the inclination to the desire for power in the personality. The review-analytical research allowed to draw up the following conclusions: in psychoanalysis the phenomenon of power and unconscious aspiration of a personality to it does not have a separate comprehensive object of study; the subject area of this phenomenon can be reconstructed on the basis of the study of intrapsychic preconditions of pregenital stages of psychosexual development of a personality; a possible general intrapsychic basis of aspiration to power has been determined; a single psychoanalytical scheme of formation of the propensity of a personality to aspiration to power has not been revealed. Meanwhile, possible intrapsychic prerequisites for the formation of the tendency to strive for power in personality have been identified and generalized.